By Ubong Sampson – Uyo
Former Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu has maintained that the current structure of federalism in Nigeria is no longer sustainable.
In a statement on Sunday by his media adviser, Mr. Uche Anichukwu, Ekweremadu said he had, since over a decade ago, been warning the nation against what he termed “feeding bottle federalism” which states are encouraged to depend on redistributed resources of other federating units for survival.
While advising the National Assembly not to embark on any legislation over who has the right to collection of Value Added Tax (VAT) and Stamp Duties which have been subjects of raging legal tussles between some states and the federal government, he
held that any constitution amendment to transfer VAT collection to the exclusive legislative list, as reportedly requested by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), would amount to changing the goal post in the middle of a game.
The lawmaker maintained that since past legislative efforts to get things right had been scuttled, it was natural and imperative to allow the judiciary to play its role in shaping the nation’s federalism.
“The major takeaway from our ailing economy, collapse of the naira, and the VAT and stamp duty imbroglio is that our feeding bottle strand of federalism is no longer sustainable. We must diversify and expand our economy now; and there is no other way than to remake our federalism to enable states to harness and unleash their endowments and comparative advantages.
“Rather than begrudge states like Rivers and Lagos, all federating units should be encouraged and enabled to look inwards to reinvent themselves, boosting their respective competitiveness through improved security, human capital development, industry, and building of egalitarian and cosmopolitan societies to attract more investments and economically viable populations. That is how federations are meant to function”, he concluded.
While describing as “untidy”, any attempt for the Presidency or its agency to seek through the back door, legislative intervention in its favour on a matter that is prejudice, he noted that the constitution should be allowed to be tested in the courts of law, noting further that allowing the litigations to run the full course could be a major step towards strengthening the nation’s federalism.
Commending Governors Nyesom Wike and Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Rivers and Lagos states respectively, as well as their houses of assembly for their courageous moves, Ekweremadu advised every state to look inwards towards boosting its revenue, since, according to him, every part of the country has what it takes to prosper.
“The bottom line of the raging tax ‘war’ is that having unwittingly killed industry, having elevated our nation to an oil dependent economy, and consequent upon the collapse of oil price amid other sources of energy, our economy is virtually collapsing, the naira has crashed to an all-time low, and the nation has come to rely more and more on taxes. Inevitably, some states have now begun to question some practices they feel fly in the face of federalism and justice.
“VAT is essentially a consumption tax and what states like Rivers and Lagos are saying in essence is that the federal government cannot continue to rob them of taxes paid on goods and services consumed in their states, some with environmental and social consequences that they have to deal with, but only to withhold as well as transfer a large chunk of such revenues to other states, he added.
